Woodworking by: Zechariah

Zechariah sands an oar.

Over the years we have done little in the way of woodwork.
Most of what
we have done has been small repairs and refinishing on pieces that we
picked up second hand. With the price of used furniture being so low
and the price of lumber being comparatively high, we have found it hard
to justify making many things ourselves. We have, however, made some
items that we could not get second hand like floor to ceiling
bookshelves. We have also made many smaller items for fun and just to
be able to say that we had made them ourselves,
like mortar and pestle sets, trivets, animal banks, desk top
bookshelves and

Nathanael assists his Dad in the shop.

bird houses. These were most commonly used as gifts. There are also
some things that we have seen or thought of that we just could not find
anywhere and thus we have had to make them ourselves. These we were
able to customize to meet our specific needs, like the corner cabinet
in our living room which has a thin drawer just right for our small
piano to fit into, it is set at just the right height off the floor so
that it can be rolled out, and played, and then rolled back in. Dad
made that cabinet when we first moved into the 'new house', it also
contains our tapes, videos and players.

Julia & Nathanael refinish our chairs.

We have fixed and refinished many second hand items
over the years. The most time consuming of which was probably the
dining room chairs. We have also over the years refurbished
trunks for each of the girls as hope chests. They usually worked on
them themselves with Dad, making any needed repairs and refinishing if
necessary. This gives them time with their Dad working together on a
mutually interesting project. Another thing that they did for their
hope chests was to line them with a thin layer of red cedar to help
protect the contents from moth and bug damage. We have all had a fun
time with the projects that we have worked on and especially enjoy when
we are working together as a group.

Craig sands our new shelf.

My first recollection of anyone in our family actually doing
woodworking was when my father paneled the walls in our living room and
made two built in bookshelves. The first recollection of helping on a
woodworking project was when I helped my father make the third leaf for
our dining room table, that was almost ten years ago.

The first project, however, that I can remember doing all by myself was
several years before either of those. I surely must have watched my
siblings making mud puddle boats but I have no recollection of that,
they had them and they had made them, I know that much. It was a wet
day and there was a river running down our driveway when I was outside
playing by myself. It seems that I must not have had any boats of my
own at that time for I decided to make one. I knew how it was done, the
scraps that Dad let us use were in the garage along with the tools, also
set aside for our use. Someone had to have been working out there
because I could not have gotten in myself. After picking a board, I
tried to cut a tapered bow on it with a hand saw. I do not remember if

Craig at the table saw.

I succeeded or how the boat turned out, but I do remember the
trouble I had with the hand saw. I just could not get it to cut or to
work anything like my father could. The experiences of that day have
tainted my view of hand saws until quite recently when I was again
working by myself and I just could not get the band saw to work, the
jig saw had no blades and the table saw just could not do that
particular cut, so I turned to the only remaining option, the hand saw.
Well I guess we do also have a reciprocating saw but it was out in the
shop. I was quite surprised with the ease and speed with which it cut,
but after thinking about it I recollected the last time I had used a
hand saw in woodworking and realized that I must have been only about 6
years old. The saw would have been half as big as I was. Since that
time when I first made a boat, I have worked on many other woodworking
projects varying from improved boats to bookshelves. I have enjoyed the
many hours that I have spent working in our woodworking shop and hope
to be able to spend many more hours there, learning more skill and
making
more items of usefulness and beauty.

Zechariah restains our chairs.

Recently I have been considering making some chairs. I have
been looking at chairs for multiple reasons, of coarse most important
is that there are several places around our house where we could use
some more. Also because we could get the lumber off our own land and
plane it on our jointer. And last but not least, I would
like to try my hand at a technique I read of recently for making joints
without glue, nails, screws or any fasteners of any sort. I came across
a book on the subject at a local library book sale. What I learned from
flipping through it so fascinated me that I bought the book even though
it was starting to fall apart. In the next few days I read the whole
book. The technique used mortise and tenon joints, the mortise being
dried slightly more than the tenon before final fitting, that way when
the moisture levels equalize the mortise would swell just enough to
give a tight permanent fit. Although I have not tried this technique it
makes a lot of sense and I hope to be able to use it at some point in
my projects.

Bookshelf by: Julia (13)

Zechariah, Craig, & Julia surprise me with a new school bookshelf. Thanks!

Dad, Zechariah and I worked on a bookshelf for Mom. After many
months
and much labor I was finally staining the wood. The shelves I could
stain and stand up to dry inside the woodworking shop but the longer
top, bottom and side boards were just to long (or so we thought). So
outside Dad and I took them to some waiting saw horses. Here I stained
them using a rag. I swept stain all over each side. Swiftly I stained
one board then moved on to the next. Just as I had begun rain fell from
the sky. Large droplets spattered all over my neat staining and the
waiting boards. Hastily hailing Zechariah we hustled all the boards in
out of the rain. Where the stain had already been laid down all was well
after drying them vigorously with a towel. But when we attempted to
continue laying down stain on the other boards, a polka dotted effect
occurred. Everywhere a rain drop had hit there was a dot, hastily we
stopped staining and left the boards to dry out. Even so we did not
allow then to dry long enough for they are polka dotted to this day, a
mute reminder to have patience. Julia (13)

Julia routers on the shelf sides.

Picture Frame by: Joanna (11)

Because I made a picture which did not fit any picture frames we had,
Dad and I set out to make one. Picking a board was simple, all it had to
be was the right width. After cutting the board to the right lengths,
Dad sanded them, then Dad biscuit jointed the pieces together. Biscuit
jointing consists of making a groove on each end of the two boards, just
right so the grooves would line up with each other, then gluing the
''biscuits'' into two grooves half in each groove. (Biscuits are football
shaped slivers of wood). Using wood clamps to firmly hold the
frame together, we let the glue dry for a couple of days. After the glue
was well dried, we stained it Golden Oak so it would match the rest of
the woodwork in the house.